The Player of Games

What you can see here is a diagram of my devising which places the planets in the context of human consciousness. They are calibrated in this way using a specific methodology which has been checked against a number of spiritual perspectives and which (ultimately) feels correct, intuitively at least. I do not wish to make too much noise about where this diagram came from, but I can explain it quite easily. This is especially useful because I have had a few people ask me recently about the Chirotic Awakening, and of course Orcus and Pluto are important topics for any initiate of the astrological mystery school.

We can see here that the path from Pluto – base compulsion – to the Sun – true solar consciousness, is interspersed by various levels or stages of self-awareness. Perhaps we should say, rather than levels, that what we are looking at here are the gradations of self-awareness, from none, to a completion, wherein the completion contains no compulsion at all. Mercury and Uranus are the only planets which are ‘difficult’ to place and I am uncertain as to why this should be so at this time.

In any case, it is possible to deduce that the progress of the soul is dependent upon a series of enlightenments, each progressively more conscious and progressively less compulsive than its predecessor. It’s interesting too that we talk about the transformation of Pluto, because this is in fact only the first transformation, and it therefore becomes the benchmark or mould for all transformation, which is why we learn the principle associated with the Crucible of Hades before we learn anything else. Once we understand this, in principle, we can apply the Plutonic energy to higher and higher paradigms of human consciousness. So while we begin with a Plutonic transformation, the seed transformation of base compulsion, we are only beginning the spiritual journey at this time and we have much work to do. The Plutonic transformation requires that we master our compulsions and immediately we have done that we are in the field for learning the Orcan paradigm. Let us call that integrity. For most people, integrity is just a word that is interchangeable with a phrase: let us call that phrase “the appearance of integrity”. I will not say too much on that because I have written a book on it and I don’t want to spoil the “plot”. Once we have mastered Orcus, we are into the various archetypes of human life and on we go.

So, the first important question must be: why do most people not understand what integrity means? I estimate 85% of all people alive today do not understand what integrity is, although they assume they do. This is because they have no soul. That is not to say that their soul is missing, everyone has a soul, but the majority have no access to it. It is too oppressed by ego. They effectively do not understand that they exist and instead believe that are acting under their own volition in all things. But they cannot see the puppetmaster, the ego, pulling the strings in the shadows. Once you are able to accept the simple truth that you cannot control anything in the entire Universe other than yourself, you have begun to transform Pluto. Then, when you have actually stopped trying to control anyone or anything else, you have done it.

Is that not incredibly simple? It is the easiest thing in the world to do, but nobody is very keen to do it. We can make it even simpler than that. If you’re serious about waking up, if you’re serious about wanting to be happy, if you are totally, starkly and unconditionally committed to becoming a truly spiritual being then you only have to do one thing, and it’s so incredibly easy that you can start today and have mastered it by tomorrow. Here it is:

Stop playing games.

Well, it sounds easy doesn’t it? The only obstacle to this objective is that most people believe that they are not playing games; they believe that the game is life, not that the game is what is preventing them from living their life. They think that without the game, they would not have anything, that it would all be taken away and they would be destitute, homeless, unloved. They worry. You probably believe that everyone worries, about everything, all the time, but it isn’t so. Only people that play games worry, because the game is a worrying game. When you stop playing, the worry fades and very soon, you have no worries. It is really tough for people to get it, because they are always concerning themselves with the game, and especially with the other players. This is because the ego is the gameplayer, and you are therefore competing with other gameplayers to win. But the great trick is, that since there is no game – it’s just a goad that the ego uses, your anxiety about losing something to keep you hooked on playing – there is nothing to win, or to lose.

Once you realise that the game is meaningless, you can stop playing, you can develop material integrity (the precept of taking nothing that is not freely given) and that in itself is liberating, then you can work through Saturn, that materialism is only another part of the game, and on you go.

So why is Chiron there, on the threshold of self-realisation? This is the Chirotic Awakening and as you can see, it is a fairly advanced stage of human consciousness. Individually speaking, the clue will be in your Chiron placement, so if you have Chiron in Aries and the 1st house then you will know that the one thing you cannot easily do is interact. When you do, you are prone to feeling irrelevant, talked over, talked down. People with this placement (I watch them) do one of two things: they either fade awkwardly into silence and allow themselves to be sidelined in an exchange, or they push too hard, force their statements out and create tension. Either way, they end up feeling awkward and self-conscious. At the point of the Chirotic Awakening, they quickly come to understand that all along, they had no need to be heard. That nobody has anything to say. Most of all, people with this Chiron, upon awakening, realise the truth of the maxim that while speech might be silver, silence is certainly golden.

Does it detract anything from you if nobody listens to you? Of course not, although it will be very damaging to your ego. Then you are into the game again. It is for this reason that Chiron is the point of true self-realisation, because our most vulnerable nature is the final and most compelling trigger to the avoidance of nothingness. Nobody wants to be nobody, right? That is true enough, at least until you reach the threshold of self-realisation, because then you realise that everybody is nobody, and nobody is all we ever can be. In truth, nobody is all we ever were, and having got past that, we become free to be exactly who we are!

Then you stop worrying and move increasingly into present time. Now you’re happy and life simply unfolds, without your having to do anything, not even having to express a view, a reservation, because you know that you cannot change anything anyway.

There is no game, so why play?

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17 thoughts on “The Player of Games”

Perhaps Mercury and Uranus are “difficult” to place because Uranus is believed by some to be the higher octave of Mercury, and Mercury symbolises the archetype of the psychopomp, able to travel between the worlds.

The blueprint you have drawn is very similar to the three worlds in Norse Tradition, the tree of Yggdrasil: Niflhelm, Midgard, Asgard

You may like to consider checking in with Hephaestus: no lame excuses; and perhaps the addition of Juno – in ancient Rome the juno was the ‘soul’ of the God’dess embodied in women, equal to the ‘genius’ of men. They dropped the ‘juno’ and kept the ‘genius’ divesting women of their soul. This is the realm of Orcus – broken rights.

Alan Watts would be nodding his head sagely as he read this. As to the question ‘Why play?’, well I think the greatest fear is that of the fear of being ostracised from society and the resulting humiliation. Have you ever seen the Asch experiment? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRh5qy09nNw

In terms of polarity, Pluto is the black hole that keeps again and again swallowing our emotional contents, in order to renew us emotionally. Integrity does not exist without the awareness of being split by polarity. Integrity is the seed moment, the transcendence of all control issues beyond games. Where are Chiron and Orcus in this context? Love and Peace.

Great and deep reading. Winners take Nothing (as the title of a short stories collection by E. Hemingway), loosers take it all. The reversal of the Worlds. There is a lot of Christian mythology, but not only that, in your statements. Especially in the field of mysticism. If there is too much Ego, then God has no place to go. We must decide whether to do a little God of ourselves or or try to look like the Matrix or the original mold. God made us in His image and likeness. Including the illusion of feeling powerful or omnipotent like Him. The ants of the Universe continue to play their tireless duty undeterred by drawing ridiculous trails in the dust waiting for the next hole up tomorrow always equal to itself. What a vision may have an ant about the Cosmic Force? From all of this follows that the only way to experience the Power on Earth of Universal Energy, which constantly has knocking at our door, is to renounce or to create a small room at home so that we can receive it. There would be many things to say, but time is short. Like, for example, that the real victory against Time is not Life but Death. How many of us men are able to understand this?

Thank you for your insights. Can Pluto ever be good? I have Sun trine Pluto and Pluto’s bound lord is Mercury, 135 degrees away. Wow, it is true I have problems expressing myself though, sometimes I am creating an impression, am aware of it, and can’t seem to stop when communicating like right now! Saturn is also part of a grand trine in my chart. it seems the “bad” planets are my good planets! Anyway that is my question. I guess what I am trying to say is that you seem to have a difficult Pluto, say, would u ever put your chart up or is that too personal?

Pluto is irrelevant, because Pluto is what Pluto is, what matters is your level of consciousness. You know when somebody is playing games, so that is your guide. Pluto doesn’t *make* anyone do anything, you are in the driving seat and you can allow your Pluto to run your show, or you can resist. That’s the only choice we humans have. My astrology is irrelevant because I made the choice to live a life of spiritual integrity. Before I made that choice my Pluto was very problematic. Planets are only given license to be bad by the central authority, which is you. About 85% of people never make the decision to take charge of their astrology, but that option is open to us all and it is the work of a moment to change your ‘bad planets’ into a blessing. Good luck to you my dear.

Agreed, Jeremy. I took the plunge to understand what Pluto in my natal chart means, i.e. 8th House Virgo. I can let it rule me, as I used to. Now I channel that ‘compulsion’ to know others’ secrets in a conscious, empowering fashion to enable others, i.e. my clients. That has meant that, almost without exception, I have been confronted by my own Shadow through my clients (perhaps a function of my natal Sun Opposition Pluto). I do NLP Coaching and Hypnotherapy; a small number of clients have expressed an interest in astrology, so I have taken the necessary steps to understand astrology in increasing, and practical, detail.

Keep up the most splendid work! I have read your Orcus text, and have just begun to read it again, in light of further Plutonian studies and insights.

Brilliant Richard and that Su/Pl opposition must be a real channel in your work, it’s difficult to use that sort of aspect positively, but the best way forward is to bring the hidden out of others in an intense counselling relationship. I’m happy that you’ve read Orcus, best of luck.

I’ll be dropping you an email for further information on the astrology training you provide, Jeremy. I instinctively, and intellectually (good ol’ Mercury in the 3rd House Ares, together with Uranus 9th Libra), ‘get’ your approach. The Hadean trio indeed…I felt drawn over recent months to study Eris archetypal meaning and effect, both natally and through transits. Discovering your own keen interest re. Eris is timely!

without the use of memory and imagination ask yourselves this – ‘who am i?’
the answer is of course – “Nobody”- try it it is not a trick nor am I trying to be a smartarse. It is the unassailable fact the very alpha and omega of all spiritual inquiry. Ponder,brood sit with this one and only fact “I am” as unbelievable as it may seem – all else is Hearsay, fiction a ruse, stories wonderful, delicious, fanciful -concepts. The body/mind this psychosomatic apparatus I am not this! I am the animating consciousness, the space like awareness the never-changing, ever-changing Self- is revealed – the concept “Venus” may hint at such bliss, that total freedom form the bondage of self we are all so desperately seeking…

Eris…she keeps drawing me back to consider what she symbolises, on a personal level. My understanding of the Olympian Goddess of Strife, Discord and Chaos is that a. she has been likened by some to Persephone, archetype-wise, b. wasn’t a happy bunny after being neglected from an Olympian party, offered the ‘fairest of the all’ apple to the resident beauties, and c. may have had a hand in kicking off the Trojan War.

My ex-partner and a woman whom I feel a distinctly Plutonian drawing-towards (i.e. compulsion!) share the following nativity patterns:

Pluto in the 7th House in Libra.
Eris in the 1st House in Ares.
Pluto Opposition Eris.
Chiron in the 1st House in Ares – my ex-partner; Chiron in the 1st House in Taurus – the friend whom I feel drawn to.

Now here’s my insight, and please contest this perspective if you disagree. Eris as embodying strife and discord, in light of her being camped in the 1st house of the personality, raised the heckles on the back of my neck when I recognised the following connection. Can ‘Lady Discord’ represent the potential for contributing to mental illness, along the lines of bi-polar? I appreciate that other factors are involved in identifying the potential for psychopathology in an individual (I wonder if the Moon in the 12th House in Aquaruis for my ex-partner plays a part here…).

On meditating on the relationships between Eris and Chiron in these nativity patterns, I couldn’t help but become aware of the great healing potential in the Pluto-Eris opposition. Bringing to conscious awareness whatever unconscious energies are contained in this pattern can make or break a person, if they fail to engage in engage in Hadean Work.

I know this to be the case in my self, as with Sun Opposition Pluto, neglecting the Shadow, both personal and collective, can and has reaped havoc.

“Mercury and Uranus are the only planets which are ‘difficult’ to place and I am uncertain as to why this should be so at this time”… on Uranus’ role/place on that arc toward zero compulsion…as Awakener, perhaps…manifesting those genuine ‘ah-ha’ moments/epiphanies. I can attest to the significance of Uranus’ lightening bolt-like awakenings throughout the current square with Pluto. Uranus may be the ‘wild card’ which is summoned at various points along the arc.

"Jeremy Neal's masterwork about Orcus is a major contribution to the advancement of astrology. Facing the real significance of these newly-discovered trans-Neptunian bodies is not work for the faint-hearted. This is a courageous book that carries the reader into the heart of darkness. Fortunately, it also carries us out again! Neal faces painful subjects unflinchingly, and yet never loses sight of the higher ground. I enthusiastically welcome his voice to the conversation."